Clare Armstrong, writing for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC): Australia will seek to harness the benefits of artificial intelligence without losing control of it by tackling challenges such as data centres, copyright, and jobs through a new national framework. Buoyed, no doubt, by the… success of the social media ban for Australians aged under sixteen, the Australian government is setting its sights on AI. But I shouldn’t be so cynical. An Office of AI will be established within…

SpaceX’s two-trillion dollar (US) share-market valuation astonished market analysts, investors, and probably a great many other people, alike. Roger Montgomery, an Australian financial adviser, sets out in simple terms how the remarkable figure was calculated. My head is still spinning.

Often, calling something (or some process, market, transaction, and so on) capitalism appears flippant, but the reality is that the problems of society today stem directly from the capitalistic logic developed and maintained at the Industrial Revolution. Referencing an 1800s analysis1 over and over again is exhausting—doing so, I think, is a large part of why calling something capitalism appears flippant—but largely the logic has not changed. The simplicity of naming it is useful because, since…

How much does federally funded R&D benefit the economy? Sheila Campbell, Jaeger Nelson, Eli Schrag, Heidi Williams, and Caleb Wroblewski work through some ways of answering that question in “Estimating the Economic Effects of Federally Funded R&D” (Congressional Budget Office, Working Paper 2026-08, July 2026). (Full disclosure: Among her other roles, Williams is editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, and thus my boss.) The authors use two alternative approaches to estimate the value…

Follow the money.

Evan Rosenman writes: The implosion of Graham Platner’s Senate campaign in Maine has upended a marquee Senate race, leaving the state Democratic party just a few weeks to choose a substitute nominee. A planned nominating convention on July 25th has drawn considerable candidate interest. But the mathematical properties of ranked choice voting add a strange wrinkle to these deliberations. The Maine Democratic Gubernatorial Primary Three of the top contenders to replace Platner are former…

Google is building an AI data center in West Memphis, Arkansas, across the Mississippi River from Memphis. (I know, it’s a very original city name.) Google joins SpaceXAI and others in the Mid-South for cheap land and abundant water, but it faces the same core challenges — mainly, how to feed its huge collection of power-hungry hardware. When the project was announced, details about power generation were sparse. Today, we know a bit more. Will Conkling and Christopher Scott at Google: Today,…

This is so 100% Swedish.

There may soon be good news for businesses that rely on the franchise model, which, along with gig work, has been under assault from the left for quite some time.The good news comes in the form of proposed regulations concerning "joint employment" that have just passed the required period for public comment:These distinctions between business relationships and arrangements matter under our labor laws. What's known as "joint employment" occurs when two or more entities are both liable for a…

"Ceasefire" is by far one of the most meaningless words in the dictionary of the Middle East. Since the alleged ceasefire between Iran and the USA/Israel, the war has not really stopped. While the capital and bigger cities such as Tabriz and Isfahan have not been a target, as they were all bombed during both the 12-day war and the conflict this year, towns in the southern parts of Iran have been regularly under fire from the US army. I never had the chance to visit southern provinces, but based…

Dr. Izabella Majcher, Independent Consultant Photo credit: Shutterstock *References to the Regulation's provisions reflect the agreed text at the time of writing and may change following legal-linguistic revision Amid chants of "send them back" from some Members of the European Parliament, the Parliament adopted the EU Return Regulation on 17 June 2026 by 418 votes to 218, with 30 abstentions. Such a broad majority on legislation that would otherwise have been highly divisive was made possible…

This was one of the most common objections to Plan A. The plan proposes AI chip regulation to ensure that both China and America know where all the chips are, making their deal to regulate AI together “trustless” (ie neither side can defect even if they want to). Several people argued that this kind of regulation amounted to some kind of “Orwellian dystopia” or “global panopticon”.I’m reminded of a story I heard - I can’t find it, maybe one of you can - from a DC insider who said it was…

There’s a saying that all of the institutions are really just about pushing pencils. The FXT buys the pencils, the NCA tells you what colour you’re allowed to use, and Sovereign tells you that’s not your pencil so put it back.I didn’t say it was a good saying. I got it from a Notarianshand up on fifth, so take it up with them.Sovereign knows everything has a rightful owner, and it’s probably not you. In fact, the act of claiming ownership is already mighty suspect. The Captain has (hopefully!)…